The Mercury
Visions of Louis Daguerre by
Dominic smith
When the
vision came, he was in the bathtub. So
begins the madness of Louis Daguerre. In
1847, after a decade of using poisonous
mercury vapors to cure his daguerreotype
images, his mind is plagued by
delusions. Believing that the world will
end within one year, Daguerre creates
his “Doomsday List”—ten items he must
photograph before the final day. The
list includes a portrait of Isobel Le
Fournier, a woman he has always loved
but not spoken to in half a century.
In this luminous debut novel, Dominic
Smith reinvents the life of one of
photography's founding fathers. Louis
Daguerre’s story is set against the
backdrop of a Paris prone to bohemian
excess and social unrest. Poets and
dandies debate art and style in the
cafés while students and rebels fill the
garrets with revolutionary talk and gun
smoke. It is here, amid this strange and
beguiling setting, that Louis Daguerre
sets off to capture his doomsday
subjects.
Louis enlists the help of the womanizing
poet Charles Baudelaire, known to the
salon set as the “Prince of Clouds”, and
a jaded but beautiful prostitute named
Pigeon. Together they scour the Paris
underworld for images worthy of
Daguerre’s list. But Louis is also
confronted by a chance to reunite with
the only woman he’s ever loved. Half a
lifetime ago, Isobel Le Fournier kissed
Louis Daguerre in a wine cave outside of
Orléans. The result was a proposal, a
rejection, and a misunderstanding that
outlasted three kings and an emperor.
Now, in the countdown to his apocalypse,
Louis wants to understand why he has
carried the memory of that kiss for so
long.
An unforgettable novel from an
award-winning writer, The Mercury
Visions of Louis Daguerre is the story
of enduring love, fame unraveling, and a
prodigious mind coming undone.
Reviews:
(Starred Review) Smith's
beautifully written debut...a compelling
psychological study, a thoughtful
tracing of the birth of a new art form
-Kirkus
Reviews, December 15, 2005
"In its
evocation of the artist as lover
thwarted by time and death, it captures
some of the sweetness of feeling of
La Bohème. By the time it reaches
its final pages, The Mercury Visions
of Louis Daguerre has become a
genuinely moving experience."
- Anthony Giardina, author of
Recent
History
"In The Mercury Visions of Louis
Daguerre, Dominic Smith writes with
an authority very few first-time
novelists possess. He wonderfully evokes
nineteenth- century Paris through a
chemically addled consciousness -- a
formidable achievement that he manages
with humor and grace. A remarkable
debut."
- Mark Jude Poirier, author of
Modern Ranch
Living: A Novel
"An
endlessly thought-provoking story about
a man driven to capture and preserve
everything that is fleeting and
evanescent. It is a book as haunting as
a daguerreotype: true in its details,
but pesteringly strange; and as
beautiful as if it were written not in
words but in light."
- Stephen Harrigan, author of
The Gates of the Alamo
About the Author:
Dominic Smith
grew up in
Australia and now lives in Austin,
Texas. He is a former recipient of
the Dobie Paisano Fellowship from the
Texas Institute of Letters. His
short fiction has been nominated for a
Pushcart Prize and is forthcoming with
The Atlantic Monthly.
Read an excerpt from The Mercury
Visions
Visit Dominic's Website
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